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Obama had zero to do with closing the "GM plant." The plant was actually closed while Bush was president. Obama gave a speech in Janesville during the campaign in which he suggested the plant would not have to be closed if he became president, but the plant was closed by General Motors before Obama took office. The GOP's lying VP candidate Paul Ryan recently tried to blame the assembly plant's closure on Obama. Actually it's unfair to blame the closure on Bush either.

Ralph, that is absolutely incorrect. The plant stopped making SUVs in Dec of 08, but it continued to manufacture other vehicles until April of 09.SUVs were the plant's bread and butter - and if you take a look at what Obama said about 'gas-guzzling SUVs' you'll find that there was little incentive for the plant to continue production.

Ryan told the truth - the plant closed in 09. Now, I just wish democrats would tell the truth.

In October 2008, GM announced Janesville Assembly would be largely idled December 23, 2008 when production of SUVs would end.[14] On December 23, workers gathered at a ceremony to take photos with a banner reading "Last Vehicle off the Janesville Assembly Line". The last vehicle was sold in a raffle benefiting the United Way.[15]2009

57 production employees continued assembly work at the Janesville Assembly until April 2009, completing the GM/Isuzu light truck partnership and then an additional 40 to 50 "skilled trade employees" worked to decommission the plant.[16]

What Ryan and your interpretation are misleading and not especially honest. The decision was made to close the Janesville plant by GM while Bush was still president. A few employees remained after the first of the year to close out an agreement with another auto company and mothball the plant. Blaming the closure on Obama is an outright lie.

I simply do not understand how you can read the same source as me (and apparently others) and come up with a completely different conclusion.You are quibbling about when the actual last SUV rolled off a plant that was announced to be closing in 2008. The decision to close the plant happened under Bush.Obama didn't take office until 1/20/09.

How, in the span of 3 months of his term, was President Obama supposed to stop the wheels of a PRIVATE SECTOR company from terminating production in ONE PLANT making SUVs (which are not as popular as they were when Bush incented people to buy them -- remember that?)

One plant, which conveniently happens to be in Janesville, Wisconsin?

The better question is, since that is Paul Ryan's district, whey didn't HE work tirelessly to keep the plant open for his constituents BEFORE 2008?

Absolutely we are better off than we were four years ago when we were on the brink of a deep worldwide depression. Now, although unemployment is still high, the country's economy is slowly recovering. The recovery would have been faster were it not for the Republicans in Congress.

Six trillion more in debt. Unemployment at 8.3. Obama has broken 90% of his campaign promises spent more than all previous presidents combined. Spent all that money and nothing to show for it. Please don't vote.

And for those R's that think all you have to do is cut welfare, think again. if nothing else the present British Government can be thanked for showing you what the opposite of a Keynesian economy looks like. You will contract, feel the pain, and end up borrowing even more money than Keynesian opponents would have when spending. Think long and hard.....

Here's another idea, why not cut corporate taxes in line with their level of recruitment? Corporations pay taxes on a declining basis when their staff levels increase?

Who said I wasn't worried about the debt? My bone of contention is that *just* trying to bring down the deficit with no other master plan for growth, is not only counter-productive, but destructive, too.

Don't think so. Refer to my original post, I was suggesting, as a Brit, that the US could and should take a look the current UK Government before voting, to gain some insight into the opposite of Keynesian economics and how that might work out for you in reality. When I said, WE, I meant WE as in British. Yes, we've tried that, still no jobs.

The problem with corporate taxes, Hollie, is that they are double taxes, for the most part and they result in corporations shifting assets to avoid taxation.

There will never come a time when a large corporation willingly gives up its profit to feed the masses. It just won't happen. It's not natural. But corporate taxes are NOT income taxes. Everyone one of the corporate employees that draws a salary is paying income taxes. The shareholders, investors, owners....ALL are paying taxes on what they get from the company.

Corporate taxes are taxes levied against the "profits" in a corporation. This is the amount left over after the cost of doing business is subtracted from the gross receipts.

If the govt. would drop corporate taxes and instead require the business to reinvest the amount in new jobs - unemployment would drop in a heartbeat. But they won't. Because too many people think that the way to a thriving economy is to tax corporations. For goddsake, non-profit hospitals are corporations. The word "corporation" does not immediately mean "rich and evil."

What folks don't understand is that businesses will move their operations or close their doors if it no longer becomes profitable for them to do business. We've had a lot of door-closings in the last few years and more are on the horizon. When that happens, many, many people suffer.

You'll never be able to force a company to stay in business. And you can't force them to stay in the United States. You can make it beneficial for them to do so, however. The US global competitiveness rate just dropped to number 7. Fleecing corporations won't remedy that anytime soon.

Ryan's plan was approved by CBO as balancing the budget, and eliminating the debt. Yeah, not right away, but nobody else has done that. We're in a mess, as the left always says. It takes time to fix it, right?

Or does only Obama get time?

As for Romney, he balanced his budget as governor... so he has a record. Sorry.

To put it succinctly, some people are indeed better off. They either have jobs and/or investments which could afford them more than a decent standard of living. There are others who even obtained better and/or more lucrative jobs in this depression.

Then there are the unemployed. Then again, there are a few unemployed people who have bounced back from their condition. They either have found similar jobs and/or better jobs. However, there are many unemployed people who have been unemployed for a long time. I am emphasizing here, those who were downsized, laid off, and/or fired through no fault of their own. These people are in a precarious situation.

Many of them have looked endlessly for jobs but jobs are few and far between. These people are near using their unemployment benefits and unemployment are not about to extend their benefits. Many of such people have no savings and/or investments and must depend upon those unemployment benefits to tide them over until they find another job. When their unemployment benefits are finished, some of these people probably will have to go on public assistance and/or borrow from relatives and/or friends in order to live another day. There are the extremely luckless unemployed who have gone through the socioeconomic bottomless pit.

There are those who are not affected any which way. They are flourishing socioeconomically as I write this. They are not starving, struggling, and below water socioeconomically but they also are not thriving, they are just- well, in the middle.

We could certainly talk about related topics:1. Things blamed on Obama that happened before he took office2. Things blamed on Obama that are due to Republican obstructionism3. Things Obama should take credit for that no one seems to be talking about

Congressman John Lewis of N. Carolina is giving what may be the most moving speech, among many moving speeches, at the Dem convention. Lewis's remarks brought tears to the eyes of more than one member of the audience.

"We don't want to go back." Wrt the GOP efforts to block voting by minorities, the elderly and children.

Macroeconomic indicators, yes the country is better off even though it is sluggish growth.

On a personal level, I think that four years is not enough for the macro to impact the micro - households and individual levels specially after its been in the quagmire. And besides, you can't really blame the government 100% for your financial improvement. Some other big financial aspects, monetary and global economy are impacting the country's financial growth as well.

Let's see, four years ago I was married to a man who had no sense of how money worked. He once talked about a credit card as if it were income. We finally had to refinance our house to pay off his credit cards.

Three years and ten months ago he left, and I found myself unexpectedly single and unemployed. I got some temp assignments discovered that I could make ends meet on approximately half what my ex had brought in.

Yes, I am better off than 5 years ago. I had to go through paying for an underwater home, short sold it 1 yr later, and got a job (still have it) so I am better off.Gas Prices are not good though. There are still no real gas savings vehicles. With the world's population rising out of sight 50 to 60mpg is necessary. PS - My adsense earnings are worse off than 4 yrs ago (about 60% less) due to algorithm changes.

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